As a Windows systems administrator, you may be required to document the contents of your server racks. The reasons for this documentation are myriad and manifold:

• Compliance with industry/governmental regulations
• Compliance with organizational IT policy
• Theft protection/insurance reimbursement
• Accountability to stakeholders
• General industry best practice

Microsoft Visio 2010 is a part of the Microsoft Office System suite that is optimized for the visualization of all business processes. Visio is especially well-suited to our work in IT.

Background information

First of all, it should be said that unlike many core members of the Office System suite, Visio 2010 is a Windows-only application.

NOTE: Mac OS X users tend to get a lot of mileage from Omnigraffle for their business process visualization needs.

Second, only two of the three Visio 2010 stock keeping units (SKUs) include the rack diagram template. Thus, if you are a systems administrator you will want to avoid Visio Standard 2010 and instead purchase a license for Visio Professional 2010 or Visio Premium 2010.

• Visio 2010 Edition Comparison
• Visio 2010 Retail Pricing

Third, you need to know that Microsoft Visio 2010 includes vendor-neutral shapes in its built-in stencil set. Thus, if you need or want to model real-world gear, you will need to obtain original equipment manufacturer (OEM)-provided Visio stencils.

The good news is that these are amazingly easy to come by. Most IT hardware vendors are overjoyed to provide you with detailed Visio shapes that model their equipment. Most of these shapes have associated shape data such that you can track details regarding each element in your infrastructure.

• Cisco Stencils
• Network Equipment Shapes for Microsoft Visio
• Visio Café
• NetZoom Visio Stencils
• Visio Guy Visio Links
• Router Freak Visio Stencil Files
• Lync Server 2010 Visio Stencil
• Exchange 2010 Visio Stencil
• HP Visio Stencils

Building the Visio diagram

Open Visio 2010, and from the default Backstage view, select the Network template category, and then the Rack Diagram template.

The rack diagram Visio 2010 template

Once you have the template loaded, you can bring out the Rack shape from the Quick Shapes or Rack-mounted Equipment stencils. The default size of the rack is 42 rack units (Us); however, you can resize the rack to adjust for your preferred dimension.

Next, you can load up your custom third-party stencils by clicking More Shapes > Open Stencil from the Shapes window. Browse to your downloaded .vss file, and away you go!

Loading an external stencil

Next, select a shape from a stencil and drag it into the rack. Look at the next screenshot: do you see the little red squares? This denotes a glue to connection point operation. In Visio shape connection points are denoted by blue Xs; when you glue a shape to a connection point, this effectively links the shapes together.

Gluing shapes in Visio 2010

Finally, navigate to the Data ribbon tab and select Shape Data Window. You can now attach metadata to each network shape in the diagram. Visio 2010 gives us tremendous flexibility in storing and reporting on shape metadata.

For that matter, the subject of pipelining in external data into a Visio 2010 diagram warrants one or more blog posts on its own. Let me know in the comments portion of this post if you’d like a tutorial on this subject.

The finished product

Conclusion

Admittedly, we only scratched the surface in terms of what Visio 2010 is capable of doing with respect to visualizing your IT infrastructure. As I mentioned earlier, I am more than happy to walk you through more advanced operations; let me know what you think.

• FREE: DriverView – View drivers (0)
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• FREE: Memtest86 – A memory diagnostic tool (5)

DriverView is useful for troubleshooting hardware issues because it allows you, with just a mouse click, to view drivers that are currently loaded. The free tool presents all loaded drivers in a table view with the following columns: driver name, address, file type (system driver, network driver, etc.), version, company, product name, modified date, create date, filename, and file attributes.

If your organization doesn’t own an inventory solution that supports hardware inventory, and if you are not afraid of scripting, then you can use DriverView to collect hardware information in your network. The command line version allows you to store driver information in a text file in various formats (plain text, HMTL, XML).

I tested DriverView v1.25 on Windows 7.

DriverView

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The main purpose of a system information tool is to give you an overview if you log on to a new machine. This is why it is important for that utility to be portable. If you first have to install the tool, it will probably be faster to just use the Windows system information tool.

Speccy is available as an installable and a portable version. As far I could see, there is no difference between the two, so there is no reason to download the installable edition.

The advantage of Speccy over the Windows system information tool and other Windows integrated tools is that it allows you to retrieve the most important information faster. Speccy displays detailed information about the current Windows settings, the CPU, RAM, motherboard, graphics, hard drives, optical drives, audio, peripherals, and network.

A nice feature of Speccy is that you can save snapshots of your current configuration. You can then use this snapshot to compare the Windows configuration with a later state or with the configuration of another PC. Speccy also lets you save the system information to a text or XML file.

I have created screenshots of each of the different sections because that is the best way to give you an idea of the level of detail Speccy has to offer.

Speccy

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The free benchmark software NovaBench is a simple tool, but it offers all essential benchmark tests. Benchmark tools that are not free usually have more sophisticated benchmarking functions with nice graphical outputs. NovaBench’s result page is rather simple, giving you just the plain numbers of the benchmark tests. However, if you just want to know how fast the components in a PC are, this is all you need.

NovaBench tests the RAM speed in MB/s, tests the CPU speed (floating point, integer, MD5 hash generation), tests graphics performance by measuring the 3D frames rate, and tests write speed of the hard disk.

NovaBench calculates a proprietary score that allows you to compare the performance of different PCs. If you register at the NovaBench website, you can store your results online.

Unfortunately, NovaBench has to be installed. A benchmark software tool is much more useful if it is portable. I copied the programs folder to another computer to see if NovaBench would work without installation, but the benchmark stopped when the RAM test was running. I guess a DLL was missing in the installation folder.

I tested NovaBench 3.0.3 on Windows 7.

Another nice free benchmark software is the hardware information tool HWiNFO32. Also check out the 4sysops list of free benchmark tools. What is your favorite benchmark software?

NovaBench

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A few days ago, I blogged about Memtest86, a free memory diagnostics tool. Memtest86+ is a fork of the popular tool and comes with similar features and capabilities. Readers have recommended Memtest86+ and so I had a quick look at it.

At first sight, you won’t see any significant difference between the two tools. However, if you look at the revision history, you will see that the x86-secret team added quite a few functions under the hood.

The main problem with memory test software is that it operates at a low abstraction level, which means that it has to support different hardware in order to work reliably. Since the hardware market is moving forward quickly, it is not easy for a single Open Source programmer to always support the latest hardware. Thus, reliability appears to have been one of the major catches of the original Memtest86, and so the x86-secret team decided to create an up-to-date version of the free memory test software.

The last update of Memtest86+ is from 25/01/2011 therefore, Memtest86 seems to be the most up-to-date version. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Memtest86 is better than Memtest86+. It depends mostly on the hardware you are using. Although the beta of Memtest86 v4.0 crashed in a virtual environment when I tried the tool, Memtest86+ 4.20 worked without problems in the same environment.

Hence, it makes sense to add both memory testing tools to your tool box. If one doesn’t work properly or if you want a second opinion, you can try the other one. One advantage of Memtest86+ is that you don’t need a Linux box if you want to create a USB stick with the tool. Memtest86+ is also available as a bootable ISO.

Memtest86+

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As I outlined in my memory diagnostic primer, memory diagnostic tools that are integrated in modern BIOSes can’t guarantee that a memory module is flawless. This also applies to Memtest86, a free standalone memory diagnostic tool. However, the utility is more sophisticated than most BIOS memory diagnostic tools. You can also use Memtest86 if you are uncertain which of the RAM modules has flaws and you just want a second opinion.

For this review, I tested Memtest86 v3.5b. At the time of this writing, Memtest86 v4.0 is still in beta. When I tried the beta version on a virtual VMware Workstation machine, the tool froze. However, I admit that testing virtual memory for physical flaws doesn’t make much sense. Memtest86 v4.0 has important additional features, such as support for multiple CPUs and machines with large memory. It is also quite likely that v4.0 works better with most physical main boards. The download of Memtest86 v4.0 also includes v3.5b, so you can change versions easily if problems occur.

To run Memtest86, you have to boot up from a floppy, CD, or USB stick. The download file contains the ISO image that you have to burn on a CD. The floppy disk package can be installed from Windows; for the USB version, you will need a Linux installation to create the bootable USB stick.

After you boot from the Memtest86 medium, you can choose which version you want to run: v3.5b or v4.0. The memory diagnostic tool will then immediately start testing the memory. The tool continues diagnosing until you stop it. Once it finishes testing the whole RAM, it just starts all over again. Thus, you can use the tool to rule out temperature-related problems by running the tool on a cold server until it reaches its normal operation temperature.

Memtest86 has quite a few options that you can access by pressing the C key. The Test Selection allows you to choose different test algorithms. Test Range is for configuring the memory range you want to diagnose. You can use the Memory Size option if Memtest86 doesn’t correctly detect the size of your memory. Read the Memory Sizing section under Technical Info on the tool’s homepage for information about different detection methods. The Error Report Method lets you configure how many details the utility displays about detected errors. DMI Memory Info gives you information about the memory modules in the computer. Important is the ECC mode setting. If you use ECC memory, you should enable this function. If the computer has multiple CPUs, you can tell Memtest86 to use only a single CPU or to use the different CPUs sequentially or in round robin mode.

Another popular memory testing tool is Microsoft’s Windows Memory Diagnostic tool.  One advantage of Memtest86 over comparable free tools is that it supports computers wit more than 4 GB memory. Do you know of other good memory diagnostic tools?

Memtest86

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Physical memory failures do not happen often, but when they occur they are fatal. Sometimes they won’t just crash the operating system but will also cause hard disk corruption. In the worst case, a destroyed database is the end result. This is just because one of the billions of memory cells confused a zero with a one. ECC (Error-Correcting Code) memory improves fault tolerance, but it is expensive and so are the supporting motherboards. And, of course, ECC doesn’t guarantee that RAM failures won’t occur.

Memory diagnostic tools exist for Windows. However, testing RAM while a full-blown operating system has been loaded doesn’t make much sense because too many memory cells can’t be probed that way. Thus, it is important to use a standalone memory diagnostic tool that allows you to boot up from a CD or a USB stick.

Of course, you can also use the memory diagnostic tool of the BIOS. You can typically choose between a quick and a thorough memory test. However, even if the BIOS confirms that your memory is okay, this does not guarantee that all memory cells are working properly.

For one, BIOS memory diagnostic tools usually can’t find intermittent memory problems—that is, problems that only occur at specific conditions, such as when two adjacent memory cells affect each other. Moreover, old memory modules in particular sometimes only fail at certain temperatures. Frequent temperature changes make silicon brittle, causing micro fractures on the chip. Those micro fractures often only produce problems at very specific temperatures because of the uneven expansion of the chip at different temperatures.

Hence, I recommend starting the memory diagnostic tool when the machine is still cold and then running the test for 20 minutes or so until the computer has reached its operating temperature. Unfortunately, even then you can’t be 100% sure that all memory cells are working properly. Since memory diagnostic tools use different algorithms to probe memory cells, it can’t be wrong to obtain multiple opinions.

The ideal way for diagnosing memory is to write a certain value (1 or 0) to a memory cell, then write the opposite value to all adjacent cells and probe the original cell to see if it still holds the right value. This method ensures that writing to a memory cell doesn’t affect adjacent cells, which is often the cause of intermittent errors.

The problem is that different chip designs make it difficult to determine adjacent memory cells. Memory diagnostic tools thus work with strategies that approximate this testing method. Usually they fill the memory with certain patterns, verify that the pattern has been written correctly, and then do the same with the pattern’s complement. This still doesn’t guarantee that a memory chip is flawless, but it increases the likelihood considerably.

If the memory diagnostic tool finds an error, it can be unclear sometimes which memory module contains the corrupt cells. In this case, the best way to find the faulty module is to test all modules independently by inserting them one by one into the computer. If this isn’t possible, for instance because the board requires an even number of modules, you can rotate modules and see if the memory diagnostic tool reports the error at different addresses. Another option is to replace a single module and then check if the error recurs.

If you are uncertain whether a memory module has flaws or not, replacing it is usually the best option. It certainly depends on the importance of the corresponding machine, but in most cases the crash of a productive server is more expensive than buying new RAM. In any case, I recommend testing the memory of old machines every now then, for instance if you have to reboot the server anyway. In my next post, I will review a free memory diagnostic tool that can be used for this purpose.

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Many free memory diagnostic tools are available, but if you are running Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows Server 2008 (R2) a memory diagnostic tool is already included. You just have to execute the command mdsched and choose to restart the computer. If you still use Windows XP or Windows Server 2003, you can download the tool here. In this version you have to run the .exe file and create a startup disk or save a CD image. Then you have to insert the media and boot from it. It is a lot less hassle in the newer versions of Windows, because there you just tell the tool to restart Windows and it takes care of everything. No matter which version of the tool you use, the tool starts to check your computer’s memory after your computer reboots.

The tool does three different memory checks and two passes. After both passes are completed, the computer restarts and Windows will boot again.

This so-called basic test mix is the default setting. If you want to thoroughly check your computer’s memory, I recommend running the standard or extended test. The standard diagnostic includes 8 different memory tests; the extended one includes 17. To choose one of the more intensive diagnostic checks, you have to press F1 when the Memory Diagnostic Tool is running. If you do this you encounter two more options: You can enable or disable the cache, and you can set the number of diagnostic runs. When you are finished with your customizations, you start the memory check by pressing F10.

If the Memory Diagnostic Tool does find a problem during a diagnostic check, you are informed in the status display area. If everything runs smoothly, the tool just reboots the computer after all diagnostic passes are done.

Update: Also check out the review of the memory diagnostic tool Memtest86.

Windows Memory Diagnostic tool

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If you bring up the idea in your next executive board meeting it will get support but one question will be raised: What does it cost? If it involves high costs the support will dry up fast. But going green doesn’t necessarily mean more expenditure. If everything is planned well, going green might even save the company some money. Here’s an example of how we managed to go green and save some bucks:

Last year many of our desktops ran out of support and their advanced age caused more and more malfunctions. It was clearly time to get new computers. Up to that point we used common desktop hardware. A single desktop burned around 70 W when the desktop was idle; more when the computer was under load.

I thought there would be major improvements in the field of energy consumption in recent years. However, after the test examples from our hardware vendors arrived I measured their power consumption and was disappointed to discover that consumption was in more or less the same range as the old computers. Computing power, however, increased significantly. But because many of our desktops are only used for browsing the Internet and for scientific research in various online databases, they don’t need a lot of CPU. So I ordered an Atom Ion-based computer for test purposes. I was surprised that it performed quite well—not enough to run Office or HD videos smoothly, but enough for browsing the web. The test example I got uses 18 W when idle and 24 W when running CPU burn.

This is a significant difference considering we usually exchange desktops after five years and our desktops run for 12 hours per day, every day per year. During this time span the energy savings from the Atom-based desktop would be around 919 kW. With energy prices around 0,14 EUR/kWh we would save around 128 EUR per computer. We have approximately 300 computers for public Internet access, so the energy savings would be 38.400 EUR over the five years.

Impressive? Kind of, but there are also some drawbacks:

The Atom platform is slow, and you have to thoroughly test if it meets the needs of the users. We never had a single complaint about the limited performance of the desktops in the whole year, but this is only due to their small area of operation. If you run CPU-intensive software, you should be aware that the performance per watt is much higher for Amd Athlon or Intel Core Duo processors.

If the desktops are in sleep mode or shut down most of the time the impact of a platform switch becomes less significant because both platforms burn around the same amount of energy when sleeping or turned off. Another point to consider is that the Atom platform isn’t yet widely used in corporate environments. You will have a limited choice of vendors if you want extended business support. Last but not least, creating a clone image caused more work because of some exotic chips on the motherboard.

All in all the decision to switch to Atoms was a good one: The financial department is happy because we spend less money, the helpdesk is happy because they have to carry a lot less when exchanging the desktops, and our consciences are happy because we waste less energy. Only the users’ happiness didn’t increase: They haven’t noticed any change.

• Visualizing your server rack with Microsoft Visio 2010 (10)
• FREE: DriverView – View drivers (0)
• FREE: Speccy – System information for Windows (0)
• FREE: NovaBench – Free benchmark software (1)
• FREE: Memtest86+ – Memory test software (4)

ASTRA32 – System information tool with support for driver trouble shooting and HDD health status checking. Prices start at $29.95

HWiNFO32 – System information tool. I reviewed the tool a few days ago.

SIW (System Information for Windows) – Is able to run in batch mode and can be used as simple inventory solution. Only free for private use; freeware version doesn’t support reports

SIV (System Information Viewer) – Portable tool that gives a good overview of hardware components. I also reviewed this tool.

Sisoft Sandra (System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) – lite version is free for private use. Pro edition supports push install and Windows domains

HWMonitor – Reads PC systems main health sensors : voltages, temperatures, fans speed. I tried the tool a few days ago.

SpeedFan – Monitor the temperature of various hardware components and take measures if certain limits are reached; I reviewed the tool a while back.

CPUBurn – Allows you to heavily load CPU chips; this can be useful if you want to test if CPU cooling works reliably. Also check out CPUKiller which I reviewed some time ago.

RightMark CPU Clock utility: Real-time CPU frequency, throttling and load level monitoring and on-the-fly adjustment of the CPU performance level. Only free for private use.

CINEBENCH – Measures the performance of the main processor and the graphics card

CPU-Z – Gathers detailed information on CPU, mainboard, and memory

GPU-Z – Gathers detailed information on video card and GPU

Rivatuner – Tweaking environment to tune NVIDIA GPU based display adapters

Atitool – Overclocking utility for ATI and NVIDIA video cards

RightMark Memory Analyzer – Measures real RAM bandwidth, average/minimal latency of different cache levels

HDD Health – Monitors hard disks using Self Monitoring and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) and alerts you to impending failure

HD Tune – HD benchmark utility; free version doesn’t support write benchmarks

IOMeter – Another free HD benchmark utility; I reviewed it a while back.

BlueScreenView – Scans minidump files created during “blue screen of death” crashes; useful to analyze crashes caused by device drivers

Device Remover – Detailed view of installed devices; supports bulk removal of devices drivers. Please read my review.

• Visualizing your server rack with Microsoft Visio 2010 (10)
• FREE: DriverView – View drivers (0)
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• FREE: Memtest86+ – Memory test software (4)

Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)

It can be quite annoying if a system is continuously crashing with the famous blue screen of death (BSOD). There are several ways to find the culprit. The Windows Eventlog is always the first place you have to check, if problems occur. If Windows has already been already running smoothly for some time and only started bucking lately, then newly-added devices or updated drivers are most likely the culprit. As to my experience, applications rarely cause system crashes. But be aware that some applications install nonhardware drivers (anti-virus software, encryption tools etc.).

On a newly installed system, you have to remove device by device to find the malfunctioning component. Disabling the corresponding drivers in the Device Manager is also an option. Sometimes it is the interaction of two components that causes the problem. I recently had an issue with Microsoft’s Network Monitor and my Bluetooth driver. Both components were working perfectly on their own, but whenever the corresponding drivers were running at the same time, it was only a matter of minutes until my Vista box crashed.

Analyze Windows crash dump files

If you can’t track down the culprit with the above mentioned methods, then the last resort is to analyze the crash dump memory file. By default, Windows dumps the memory to a file in the c:\Windows\Minidump folder whenever the blue screen of death appears. However, there are cases when Windows crashes so badly that even this doesn’t work anymore. The dump file contains various bits of information that can be helpful in finding the cause of the crash. Unfortunately, usually only system developers are able to make sense of this information.

However, it can’t be wrong if you have a look at the crash dump yourself. For this you have to download and install the Windows debugging tools. This KB article has a short introduction of how to open the dump file and how to configure crash dumping, and this page offers more links with further information about Windows debugging.

WhoCrashed

If you don’t like to work on the command prompt, you can install the free (for private use) WhoCrashed tool that can display the most essential information in the crash dump file. But don’t expect too much from this tool. I fed it with two Windows 7 dump files that my laptop created before I updated all my drivers. All it found is that ntoskrnl.exe was involved, but it wasn’t able to identify the device driver that was the real cause. Note that the tool requires the abovementioned Windows debugging tools which are automatically installed when you launch the WhoCrashed setup program. There also is a professional version of WhoCrashed that enables you to remotely analyze dump files.

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SIV has information about the computer hardware (main board, PCI, USB, etc.), network (adapter, IP, open TCP ports, etc.), and Windows (users, privileges, DLLs, etc.). Please note that the texts in parentheses are only examples that shall give you an idea about the variety of different information you can access through this tool. SIV has far more different categories.

I want to give you just one example of a particular function to show you how detailed the information is. The power pane displays information such as if the computer has a lid sensor, if a UPS is connected, or if thermal control is supported. All in all, the power pane alone lists about fifty such parameters (see screenshot).

SIV is not only a system information tool, it also supports tuning. The number of tuning variables is as impressive as the number system information parameters. But this is really only something for people who know what they are doing.

SIV doesn’t provide any explanation for all these parameters. I also wasn’t able to find a documentation of the tool. Of course, you can always find your way by just clicking through its menus, but this will take you a while because the tool’s user interface is a bit confusing. Menu points appear in multiple menus, and sometimes functions appear at places where you wouldn’t expect them. For example, why is there shutdown function in the help menu, and why do links to the Windows registry tools appear in multiple menus?

The best way to get started with SIV is to display the overview of all available functions (click on Copy and then on View Menus). This will also give you an idea about the diversity of information you can access through SIV. And just in case you are wondering what the Copy menu point is for: this feature enables you to copy the displayed information to the Windows clipboard. SIV also allows you to export information of a text file.

SIV

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I reviewed other tools for measuring temperature a while back (Real Temp, SpeedFan), but I like CPUID HWMonitor better. At least on my Dell laptop, it can display the temperatures of more devices than the other two tools (CPU, GPU, hard disks, ACPI, battery capacity). What devices are supported seems to be dependent on the kind of machine where you run CPUID HWMonitor. I also like that it shows the minimum and the maximum temperature that each component has had since you launched the tool.

CPUID HWMonitor is a standalone tool, so it comes in handy if you quickly want to check the internal temperatures on a server. I tested version 1.15.

CPUID HWMonitor

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Double Driver first scans the computer and then gives you an overview of all installed device drivers. You can then select all Microsoft or third party drivers. It is also possible to select only single drivers. The tool then allows you to backup the drivers either in structured folders, in a zipped folder, or in a self-executable file. The latter enables you to import selected device drivers on another machine with just a mouse click. Double Driver can also save and print the list of all drivers. I tested Double Driver 3.0.0.

A comparable tool is DriverMax, which has some additional features, such as online driver update or the identification of unknown hardware. However, if you want to use these additional features, you have to register the tool, which is not free.

Double Driver

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• In-depth information about devices and drivers
• Print device tree
• Displays hidden, non-present, and problem devices
• Searches device drivers
• Bulk removal of device drivers
• Backup device drivers
• Open and export device driver registry entry
• Start/stop, enable/disable device
• Update driver
• Save detailed driver information

Apart from troubleshooting device driver problems, you can use the tool to get rid of unused drivers, for example, if you need more disk space on the system drive. Sometimes old drivers also interfere with the system.

Device Remover

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HWiNFO32 has a useful summary view, which gives you a quick overview of a PC’s hardware capabilities. Since the tool is also available as a standalone version, you can fire it up easily on a new machine, just to know with what you are actually dealing with.

The reporting feature enables you to export all information in different formats (HTML, XML, comma delimited etc.). It is also possible to only export specific data. HWiNFO32 comes with basic benchmarking features, allowing you to compare CPU, memory, and disk performance with other systems. The system health monitoring (thermal, voltage, fan, power) capabilities complete HWiNFO32.

It is important that any system information tool be up-to-date, because the hardware landscape is changing every day. Thus far, this is the case for HWiNFO32. There also is a commercial DOS-based version (HWiNFO), which starts at $25 for corporate use and $12 for home users. I tested HWiNFO32 v3.25.

What is your favorite system info utility?

HWiNFO32

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When’s the last time you worried about driver support under Windows XP? With an installed base into the hundreds of millions, chances are you’ll still be finding XP drivers long after Vista’s grandchildren are being put out to pasture.

Let me think, when was the last time I worried about driver support for Windows XP? Hmm, it must have been a year or so after its release. Agreed, there are far more device drivers available for XP than for Vista. There is no doubt about that. It is also a matter of fact that XP will lead in this discipline for quite some time to come. However, I seriously doubt that it will be long “after Vista’s grandchildren are being put out to pasture.” Windows 2000 is a “Windows XP child”, but finding drivers for new hardware might not be that easy, anymore. And try finding drivers for “XPs grandchildren” Windows NT and Windows ME. The IT world is moving fast, faster than many believe.

But when it comes to driver support, the sheer number of available drivers is not the only thing that is important, at least, in corporate environments. It is also crucial to know whether the latest drivers are already included in the operating system. Windows XP SP3 is certainly also leading in this discipline, but since SP3 is the last service pack for XP, this will change rapidly. Yes, you will get drivers via Windows Update or you can download drivers for new devices from the vendor’s website. But managing drivers that are not included in the OS always costs time and nerves.

I have already encountered a few such incidents with Windows XP SP2 and Vista RTM. For example, when I connected a new Windows Mobile phone, Vista immediately recognized it while XP just reported “unknown device”. I suppose this driver is included in Windows XP SP3 by now. However, it is a matter of fact that time works for Vista here. But as things stand now, this round certainly goes to Windows XP. Even though the situation is much better now than it was 18 months ago, there are still many devices that are not supported by Vista. If you can’t find a driver for an old device, you are lost with Vista. Then, XP simply is the only choice.

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Freeagent is available in three sizes: 320GB, 500GB and 750GB. I opted for the biggest drive because I like to keep old backups as long as possible. Amazon offers it for less than $200. You can connect the drive through USB or eSATA. For the latter you need an eSATA card adapter. I think, it is worth the extra 30 bucks because it is much faster. USB 2.0 supports up to 480 Mbps and eSATA 3 Gbps. You won’t always reach this speed, though, because there are bottlenecks like drive speed or the performance of your laptop.

Autobackup is a nifty backup tool supporting continuous data protection (CDP). The software detects all changes made to the file system and secures them to your external drive, immediately. You can decide how many different versions of a file you want to keep. To my experience most data losses happen not because of hardware defects, but because of user mistakes. Sometimes one realizes that a file was accidently or deliberately overwritten with wrong data months later. To keep multiple versions of all data files is essential for every backup strategy.

A downside of CDP backup solutions is that they can slow down your computer, significantly if you misconfigured it. Windows and also many applications tend to save data continuously to your hard disk. Usually, it doesn’t make sense to backup this data with a CDP tool. I experimented for some weeks with Autobackup. The best way, I found, is to include your profile path (C:\users\your_profile under Vista and C:\Documents And Settings\your_profile under Windows XP) and then exclude the path used by applications to store their data (C:\user\your_profile\AppData\ under Vista and C:\Dokuments and Settings\your_profile\Application Data under XP).

I recommend keeping an eye on Autobackup in the beginning to see if it secures unnecessary files. If you have Google Desktop installed, you should be very cautious. It crashed my Vista machine every time I logged on because Autobackup tried to backup the index where Google Desktop added data, continuously . If UAC gets on your nerves whenever the Freeagent software launches, I suggest disabling the UAC prompts.

I wouldn’t use Autobackup to backup your system drive. It will not only strain your computer, constantly, I think, it will also be difficult to make use of this backup if your system drive ever fails. If you have Vista on your laptop, I would use the backup tool that comes with the operating system. It can create a complete image of your whole computer. If your system drive fails, you will be able to restore your laptop, easily. Since the image is created while the operating system is online, I would make sure that all applications are closed and I wouldn’t use the computer while the backup is running. In theory, the backup utility should be smart enough to cope with changes made to the hard disk during the backup process. XP also has a Backup Utility that supports backup to hard drives. It is not as smart as Vista’s counterpart, though. Keep your hands off the computer while the backup is running!

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Do you recommend your users to encrypt their memory sticks? I hope so. Even if you don’t have confidential data on your stick now, can you guarantee this also in the future? So, better make sure now that a lost thumb drive won’t compromise your company.

If you are a security-conscious admin, you might have recommended unknowingly an insecure encryption method in the past. Crypto tools that are good enough for conventional magnetic drives cannot always provide the same level of security for flash drives. The problem with flash memory is that it has a relatively short lifespan. To remedy this downside the so-called wear-leveling technique is used to prolong a flash drive’s service life. Please, check out my article about the lifespan of flash memory for more information.

Wear-leveling algorithms use different techniques. What is important here is that a certain piece of data is not always stored at the same location. You could say that it is this effect that reduces the wear-and-tear of memory cells. The point now is that if you encrypt data on flash memory, you can’t be sure that all cells that contain data in the clear are really wiped out because the operating system is not aware of all locations where data has been stored before.

A solution to this problem is not to store cleartext on a flash drive in the first place. If you want to work with full disk encryption, you should encrypt the memory stick before you store any confidential data on it. An even better way is to encrypt data on your hard disk first. An advantage is that the encryption process is faster. If you use TrueCrypt for example, you can create an encrypted volume first, and then copy this file which contains all your encrypted files to your USB stick. This also allows you to backup the flash drive easily.

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To secure the data on an USB stick, you have to encrypt it. Many memory sticks come with encryption software. However, it is not advisable to use it. Usually, one doesn’t know what encryption algorithm was used, and if it was correctly implemented.

My favorite encryption software is the Open Source tool TrueCrypt. It is a well-known program that is very easy to use. If a security leak was found in it, you’ll will probably read about it somewhere, and an update will be available shortly afterwards. You certainly don’t have this guarantee for encryption software that was delivered with your USB stick. Please check out my review about TrueCrypt to learn more about this nifty tool.

Update: Please, also check out my review about TrueCrypt 5.

Another advantage of using TrueCrypt is that it simplifies backups because all your data will be stored in just one file. So you only have to make sure that this file is copied regularly to your hard disk. And if your stick contains confidential data, your backup will be automatically encrypted, too.

The best time to backup your USB stick is whenever you plug it into your PC. If you use the stick on your PC at home and at work, you’ll always have a copy of your data on both computers. To start the backup automatically when you insert the USB stick, you have to create a file named autorun.inf in its root directory with the following contents:

[autorun] open=autorun.bat action=Backup

On a Vista machine this will automatically start autrun.bat whenever you connect the USB stick. On a computer with Windows XP, a window will be opened where you can launch the batch file.

TrueCrypt has one disadvantage. You have to specify the size of the TrueCrypt file in advance. The size of this file is always the same even though you only use a fraction of its capacity. So it can take some time until the file is copied to your hard disk. The size of my TrueCrypt file is 1GB. With my stick, it only takes a couple of seconds to copy the file. However, if you want to use a larger file or your stick is slow, you might want to run the backup only if you know that you changed the data on it. The following batch file which should be named autorun.bat solves this problem:

@ECHO OFF ECHO 1. Backup USB stick ECHO 2. Quit set /p choice= IF '%choice%' == '2' GOTO QUIT IF '%choice%' == '1' GOTO BACKUP :BACKUP copy stick.tc "%userprofile%\my documents" :QUIT

In this example, I assumed that you named your TrueCrypt file stick.tc. If you choose “1″, it will be copied to your documents folder and if you select “2″, no backup will be performed. Of course, you can copy your backup to any other folder.

A nice side effect of this backup solution is that if you ever forget your USB stick at work, you’ll have at least the last version of your data at home. But if you want to make sure that you’ll always have your memory stick with you, then you should check out this post: Never forget your memory stick.

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